Wednesday, 3 August 2016

MF3K mkII

For most of the morning a steady
drizzle had been falling on the muddy banks of the Dee. Around lunchtime it got
heavier, proper rain tinkling on the roof of the pale green Fiesta in the
driveway, water running then dripping then running again from the ill-fitting
guttering on the side of the garage. It spattered noisily on the ground, just
missing a small grid. Steam rose from my cup of coffee, there was no wind to
take it or the rain away so it just hung there before evaporating in front of
my eyes.

Johnny and I are leaning on
opposite sides of the open garage doors sheltering from the unwelcome
precipitation. We had planned a day on the flats with our cameras and several
thousand wading birds but the weather had put paid to that particular adventure.
So there we were supping brews and watching the rain fall on a deeply grey day.

With Atlantic influenced weather
dominating the Patch, getting rained off the Dee is not an uncommon occurrence.
In that event we usually head to a greasy spoon for a bite to eat and a chinwag
but, both a little skint, we had drifted back to Johnny’s to work on a project that
had, indirectly, come from heavy rain. The story goes a little something like
this.

The frayed corner of blue
coloured crash mat was just protruding from the sunflower yellow corporation
skip on the road outside a local secondary school. I had noticed it a few days
before and one evening after work had decided to go and fetch it.

Some seriously heavy rain had
breached the school’s flat roof and pooled in the cavity beneath. Unseen for a
few days the puddle had grown until its weight became too much for the plaster
board ceiling to bear. A torrent of water had then flooded a store room adjacent
to the assembly hall and damaged many items putting some them beyond reasonable
use, hence the skip.

The waterlogged gym mat was
ludicrously heavy and just as smelly when I wrestled it in to the Mint Mobile
and dropped it off at Johnny’s. Now dry and less smelly it was a little easier
to work with. I was never a fan of PE at school so you may be wondering why I was
going to such lengths to get this mat…

We were designing and building a photography
hide. I say designing and building, really we just made it up as we went along
using only what we found lying around garages or sheds of people we knew and whatever
we came across in skips. Classy aren’t we? Like I said, we were both a little
strapped for cash so this build had to be zero cost. There was a basic design
in our heads. We wanted to be able to lie undetected on the mudflats for some
time, whatever the weather, so we could photograph the birds at a low angle as
they fed. Therefore we needed something to keep us warm, dry, comfy, reasonably
clean and concealed from our quarry. A decent floor, waterproof roof and
camouflage were essentials.

When I saw the discarded gym mat
I had a light bulb moment. The mat was a mix of fabric and foam encapsulated in
thick blue plastic. It looked pretty waterproof, fairly insulating and not too
uncomfortable - perfect for long periods in a hide. We needed these features
because the idea was to deploy a few hours before high water and wait for the
birds to get close as the tide rose. It is no use trying to get in position
when the birds are on the move, you’d only scare them and what is the point in
that?

The idea of shooting on the
rising tide also threw up a couple of issues that we had to address, namely disturbance
and flooding. If you were close to the birds as the tide was nearing its full
height you were running the risk of scaring the birds off when you had to stand
up and leave to avoid being flooded out. We would need to engineer and install a
covert retrieval system, in other words, a rope.

This was not easy to scrounge. We
soon came across a length but on closer examination it looked alarmingly frayed
and prone to failure at an inopportune moment. After much searching we located
some in better condition that was easily long enough. We then bolted a short
piece of 4x1.5 inch timber to the rear of the mat and attached the retrieval
system (rope) to it. Once deployed the rope would be uncoiled and the second
operator would wait on the beach to gently pull the hide and photographer back
to shore as the tide advanced, keeping cameras dry and birds undisturbed. Large
cup hooks were screwed into the wood to coil the rope around when not in use.

Next we needed the roof. From the
dark recesses of my dad’s shed we found some butyl pond liner, thick with dust
and home to a few dozen spiders. We looked at it and decided it was a perfect
roof for our hide.

We evicted the arachnids, much to
the delight of a pair of Wrens, and continued to rummage through the old paint
pots, plant pots and lawn mower parts for anything useful. I found an old
cricket set that kindled a few childhood memories… Some odd black fabric,
possibly to line a flower bed and prevent weeds was discovered and we decided
to use that to carpet the mat, wrapping the blue plastic cover. It would make
the floor of the hide a little less obtrusive and non-slip, well, you know,
health and safety and all that…

Next, a small frame was fabricated
out of some offcuts of flexible fencing wire and stapled to a couple of roofing
battens left over from the re-slating of my roof. These battens were attached
to the mat with small coach bolts and the liner stapled in place over the
frame. The liner had been cut to fit the mat with enough slack allow a person
to crawl underneath the wire frame, lie down and poke a telephoto lens out of
the front.

Now, how to conceal what we had
come to call the Mudflat 3000? Cammo netting is not something most people have
lying around so we thought we might have to shell out for some. However after a
quick text message exchange we managed to trade a couple of bags of seasoned
logs for 6 square metres of the stuff from a buddy of mine who does a bit of
outdoor education. That too was stapled to the battens.

We stood back and admired our
handiwork. The Mudflat 3000 was born.

On the field test in the back
garden we came across a couple of issues so we returned to the garage to modify
the hide. The wire frame was a little cumbersome and in places where the end of
the wire poked out, downright dangerous. It was removed in favour of a flexible
tent pole and guy rope. To be frank, we pinched those from a tent we found in
Johnny’s loft.

We like a snack and a brew so we
added two optional extras to help with this. A pouch was glued on to the liner
to keep munchies to hand and dry. Next to this a small cup holder was attached
to the right hand batten. The second field trial was altogether more
comfortable.

That was that, the construction
was finished, testing phase had been completed and the Mudflat 3000 mark 2 (MF3K
mkII) was ready for deployment. We gazed at our hide, our excitement building, we
felt sure we would be able to get close to our subjects in it.